


Rapprochement

by Nyssa



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-03
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After "Gillian," Starsky and Hutch find their way back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rapprochement

I don't even know what time it is when we finally get home. Back to my place, I mean. My damn watch has stopped -- I gotta get a decent one one of these days -- and I can't remember what the clock at the station house said. I know I looked at it; that's automatic, because I have to note the time on my report. My preliminary report. The final draft'll have to wait till tomorrow. Or a year from tomorrow, if it's up to me. Whenever I can stand to relive the whole fuckin' disaster in enough detail to write it.

God knows Hutch ain't in any shape to write it.

"I'll get us a beer. You want a beer?" I don't really want one myself, but I'm already moving toward the kitchen, eager to do something, anything, that feels normal, that feels like routine.

I glance back and see him shake his head, just barely. He's sitting with his eyes closed, right hand resting on the arm of the couch, the fingers of that hand clenching and unclenching slowly. The red on his knuckles is starting to fade. There'll be an ugly bruise there by morning.

That reminds me, and I touch my chin carefully. Not carefully enough, though, to keep from lettin' out a little hiss of pain. I hope he didn't hear it.

We'll be a matched pair tomorrow, buddy. Not that we haven't always been, on the inside. Where it counts.

"Hey."

He opens his eyes and turns his head toward me.

"I got a fifth of bourbon. Jim Beam. You want it, buddy, it's yours. Every drop. Or I'll drink it with ya. Anything." _Anything, anything. Just please stop looking like you want to die._

He stares at me blankly for a second, like I was talking about the price of eggs in Peru. Then he says, "Gotta work tomorrow." His voice is distant, hollow. "I don't want to do it hungover."

I nod. "Okay." I feel myself hesitating a moment, and then I walk over and sit next to him on the couch. I don't touch him. I feel -- off-balance, somehow. Like anything I say or do will be wrong. I can't remember ever feeling that way with him before.

He shuts his eyes again and tilts his head back as far as it'll go, like he's trying to relieve tension in the back of his neck. "Probably should just go to bed."

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just the thought of a few hours of unconsciousness is beautiful. The thought of sleeping next to him, just feelin' him there, just hearing his breathing -- that's beautiful, too. Like always.

"Yeah, okay," I say, and stand up. "Come on, partner. Hey, if you're good, maybe I'll even let you keep some of the covers."

He looks up at me with shadowy eyes. "Maybe... " he says, and stops. "Maybe I should sleep here."

"On the couch? Nah, it's lumpy. There's a spring about to come through." _And it's too close to the door. I wouldn't hear you if you left in the night._

He's quiet a long moment, and then says simply, "Okay." Shit, I hate that note in his voice. Dullness, apathy, like he don't fucking _care_. He's never been like that, not ever. It makes him seem like a stranger.

He stands up, and I force myself to smile. "You have a shower, why don'tcha, and then I will." I don't even get the words out before the memory grabs hold of me with so much force my throat closes up. Him and me in the shower; his fingers on my scalp; me singing what I thought was a pretty passable version of "Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair;" him moanin' like he was dying, covering his ears, promising me anything, _anything_ if I'd stop...

I swallow hard, and slap him gently on the back. "Go on. Little hot water'll feel good."

*****

I was hoping he'd be asleep by the time I finished my shower. God knows he needs it. But he ain't. When I come out of the bathroom, rubbin' my hair as hard as I can with a towel -- damn stuff sticks up in all directions again as soon as I stop -- I see him on the bed, on the side he always slept on, one of my robes wrapped around him, staring up at the ceiling like he thinks there's something to see there that'll make him forget. I stand still a minute and watch him. He's still a little damp from the shower; his skin's just the slightest bit pink. While I look, he slips a hand in between the folds of the robe and rubs it, real lightly, over his chest. That's just a habit of his. He don't even know he's doing it. I've seen it a thousand times, and still it makes me ache.

When I hang the towel over the door and walk toward the bed, it startles him. He turns his head and blinks.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. "Hutch," I say, and then I yawn. Shit, I'm tired. "Take that damn thing off and get under the covers. You don't have to hide from me."

"I'm not _hiding_ ," he says, and I'm glad to hear the irritation in his voice. That's a helluva lot more like him. "I just thought..." He trails off, and shrugs the robe off his shoulders. I watch him hang it on the bedpost.

"Thought what?" I ask softly.

But he only shakes his head, eyes closed. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, his face looks thin, empty.

 _Babe, I'd give you anything you want. Anything. If you'd just tell me what it is._

"I won't touch ya, I promise. If you think I -- "

He turns to me, eyes wide with fresh pain, and just looks at me. And I have to drop my eyes.

I shouldn't have said that. Christ, what the hell is wrong with me? Like he'd ever be afraid of me. Like he'd ever, ever not trust me.

"I'm sorry." I feel myself shrugging helplessly. "Buddy..."

He turns away from me and pulls the covers up. "Go to sleep, Starsk," he says in a muffled voice. "It's too damn late for this."

I wait a second, but his eyes are closed and his head's buried in the pillow. I sigh and turn the light off.

*****

I thought I'd be out cold till the alarm went off, but I wake up at a quarter past two. I shift a little, sighing, and his voice speaks out of the dark.

"I'll have to take care of her funeral."

I turn and see him on his back. He's looking up at the ceiling again, not at me, but he knew when I woke up.

Well, if he needs to talk, I'll listen. I can sleep tomorrow night.

"She have any family?" I have a vague memory of her mentioning her father, but that's all.

He turns his head slowly back and forth. "I don't know. She never told me." His voice is very soft. "I just thought she didn't want to talk about her family. Some people don't, you know?"

"Yeah." He's a prime example. I know a little about his family, but only because I asked him directly, and only after we knew each other well.

"I'll have to find out. Check the records in -- in Cleveland." His voice breaks a little. "I don't know if she was born there, though." He's silent a moment, and then laughs suddenly, harshly. "I don't know much, do I?"

I start to touch his arm, and don't. I don't know where he wants me to stop anymore. "Hutch -- "

He sighs, turning his head to look at me. "I'm sorry I woke you up. This isn't your problem."

I can't believe he said that. It's killin' him and it's not my problem?

"You didn't wake me up, I was already -- "

He puts out a hand suddenly and touches my tender jaw. "I'm sorry about this, too." His voice has dropped to a whisper. "I'm sorry, Starsk."

I push his hand away, gently, before I can get too used to it. "Quit apologizing, huh? I didn't think we needed that, you and me."

"I don't know," he says, very softly. "I don't know what we need anymore. Do you?"

"I know what I need," I tell him. "But that don't mean it's mutual."

He just looks at me, and there's enough moonlight coming in through the curtains for me to see how swollen his eyes still are. I bet he's cried more in the last few hours than he has since he was a baby. Even when Vanessa left him, that blew a hole right through him, but I didn't see any tears.

"It's always mutual," he says in a whisper.

I could make a crack about that -- he's leavin' himself wide open for it -- but I won't, not now. But he knows it too, and before I can feel too righteous, he flops over on his back again and squeezes his eyes shut.

"I know," he says. "It was my idea. I was the one who wanted to cool it. I was the one who thought..." He trails off for a moment. "I guess I thought I had one more shot at being -- normal. And I didn't see how I could do that and still be gay."

"You ain't _gay_ ," I snap. I hate it when he talks like that. "I ain't either."

He turns to me, and he's almost smiling. "Okay, what would you call it?"

This is an old argument, and I thought we were done havin' it. "It's just -- it's just us, buddy. It's just the way we are together. I mean, the way we used to be." I can hear the weakness creeping into my voice. I still need us, and he doesn't. I gotta get used to that, and quit whining. "Look, you like girls, don'tcha?" I almost add, _That's why this whole mess happened in the first place_ , but I catch it in time. "You like girls, so you ain't gay. Simple."

He sighs heavily. "Well, whatever I am, I sure can fuck things up, can't I?"

He looks so tired, so beaten, that all the irritation fades out of me in a second. I love him. I can't help it.

"No more than me," I mumble, and we're silent for a while.

It's so quiet, with hardly even a car passing on the street outside, and so peaceful, with his familiar warmth so close, that I'm almost asleep when he speaks again.

"Starsk?"

I mean to say, "Yeah?" but it just comes out as a sleepy grunt.

There's a pause, and I turn to face him. That's a mistake, because it brings my mouth so close to his that I can't think for a second. I pull back a little.

His voice is very soft. "I -- I don't want you to think I'm -- playing you, or anything. I know I was the one who called it off. I don't suppose I've got any right to expect you to -- I mean, I made a mistake and now here I am asking you..."

He stops and lets out a long breath. I feel it, so warm, on my lips, and my eyes close a little.

"Buddy, it's just that I don't think I can stand this -- the next few days, her funeral, and everything I have to do -- if I don't have you."

"You've always got me," I say.

"I mean _us_. Like we were, like -- "

"I know what you mean." I'm not sure whether to believe it or not. I'm not sure if I should get all pissy about it, tell him he can't just come and go as he pleases, tell him I won't just be waiting for him any time he wants me...

Except I know I will be. I can't even imagine doing anything else. I can't feel resentful or hurt or anything but so fuckin' happy he's changed his mind that I could bust. I'm a pushover for him, and he oughta know that by now. He could take a helluva lot more advantage of it than he does.

"Just for the next few days?"

"No." He takes my hand and lays it over his ribcage, just under the nipple. His skin's so soft there, over the hard bones and muscle. It's a good place to kiss, or just lick. "No, not for a few days. If you'll have me again, it'll be for as long as you want."

I swallow. "Yeah," I say. "Okay." I don't ever gush, not out loud.

He smiles at me, a tired, tentative smile, like he's not sure what to do next. Like he's afraid of seeming too pushy.

I free my hand from his grip, cradle his cheek with it, and kiss his mouth. I don't want to be pushy either, so I don't open his lips with mine, I don't dive in, I just kiss the outside, kinda like you'd kiss your sister, I guess. His lips are warm and soft, and they kiss back very gently.

I pull back and look at his eyes. They're still hurt. They still look like somebody he trusted just punched him in the gut, only a whole lot worse. I can't get jealous. I mean, he loved her. How's he supposed to feel?

But he loved me first.

He touches my hair, rubs his fingers through it lightly. "You want to?" he whispers. "Now?"

I know he means it, and I can't remember a time when I didn't want to. But he needs to sleep, if he can. Tomorrow won't be any fun.

"Nah," I say. "It's awful late, and we gotta be up early. Need to get some shut-eye." I fake a great big yawn. I can do that pretty good.

I don't know if it fools him -- probably not -- but I can see him relax a little. "In the morning, then. Before we go in. I'll skip my run."

"You won't need to run. I'll wear you out myself."

He gives a little laugh, a gasping, cracking sound, like ice giving way in a thaw. It must hurt him to laugh right now, probably makes him feel guilty. But I bet it's better than crying.

"Go to sleep." I turn my head and glance at the clock. "Shit, it's 2:30."

"Yeah," he says, and turns onto his side, his back to me. He sighs, a really deep sigh, and I watch his ribs slowly rise and fall.

We both like to sleep on our left sides. My mom used to say not to do that, because it puts too much pressure on the heart, but I don't believe that. He's got the strongest heart I know.

I push up against him and lay my arm across his waist and let my eyes fall shut, and I know I'll sleep better than I have in what feels like forever. Since the last time I slept touchin' him, anyway.


End file.
